Waste of newsprint
Are congratulations in order since the Times-Union won the lawsuit that allows the newspaper to receive and publish the Value-Added Model scores for many individual teachers?
To what benefit is publishing this questionable information? Do Times-Union readers even understand what it means? Does the Times-Union?
What other available public information does the Times-Union plan to publish? For example, what about the people in our communities that have concealed carry weapon permits? Why not?
Information on who are the best and worst teachers in a given school has never been a secret to interested parents.
All they have to do is ask students’ families from prior years. These subjective “grades” are much more valuable than the VAM scores.
Are congratulations in order? Many think not.
Whittington Vara, St. Augustine
POLICE, FIRE PENSIONS
Use military as model
As we all follow the first-responder pension negotiation reports by the Times-Union, let’s remind ourselves of conveniently forgotten but critical facts.
Pension fund managers in the past were using unrealistic return on investment assumptions as the bubbles in the capital markets grew.
This clearly was irresponsible behavior, ignorance of history and forfeiture of fiduciary responsibility.
We all were impacted by the resulting crash; most are still feeling its effects.
The citizen task force is unfortunately not trying to provide solutions. It is reaching and begging for ways to provide retirees with irresponsible promises made.
While my respect, honor and appreciation for anyone who wears a badge is unshakable, it would seem the current Obama administration is providing the blueprint to solve our pension woes.
Just change the rules!
Our pension solution is simple, just like proposals for the Defense Department:
■ Cut back our first responder forces to pre-World War II levels.
■ Reduce overall personnel (police/fire) spending by 13 percent.
■ Cut the annual retirement cost of living increase to 1 percent.
■ Reduce access to any discounts afforded those who volunteer to protect us.
Who could argue with this?
No tax increase, a solution that aligns with federal policy, more money available for development incentives and budget-balancing.
Local first-responder pensioners will have to face the same challenges that my mom, a Navy officer’s widow, faces.
Gary Fierro, Jacksonville
An issue with editorial
The Times-Union has come out in support of maintaining city funding for the Alternatives to Truancy and Out of School Suspension program.
The arguments sound like the original objectives of the program now stated as actual accomplishments. Are they?
The editorial provides not one statistic to support what they list as program accomplishments. It refers to the example of one student who says she changed her behavior because of this disciplinary program. That’s great, but can you find another one? In fact, there are some simple questions the Times-Union could have asked when deciding whether to support this program.
How many students are assigned to out-of-school suspension each year?
How many assigned actually attend? For the entire time assigned?
How do you know the students did not fall behind because of the class work supposedly done during suspension?
The worst part of the Times-Union’s argument however is the fuzzy math in support of the statement that these centers are helping our entire community.
How much is Jacksonville saving? Unfortunately, there were no real numbers to answer that question.
The editorial dances all around it. But in the end, as even the Times-Union says, savings aren’t always in black and white numbers.
Despite that, their basic conclusion is the benefit is far greater in value than the $827,000 the city now invests in the program.
No analysis, no accounting, but it’s just obvious the savings has to be more than the large sum the city is providing.
If the City Council used that same “it’s obvious” argument to support some program they wanted to fund with taxpayer money, the Times-Union would be all over them.
Dennis Egan, retired teacher, Jacksonville
How ironic that in a state that professes to value general and mathematical literacy in its students, we devise a system of teacher evaluation (VAM) that defies both.
Any decent, defensible, ethical evaluation procedure should be based on variables that actually affect student learning in a teacher’s classroom.
A viable teacher assessment process should provide teachers with authentic data and feedback that they can analyze to improve their teaching techniques; it must not be ill-conceived and punitive.
Do we really expect to recruit dedicated teachers into a state that ignores the voice of teachers, refuses to treat teachers as professionals and reduces teacher effectiveness to a meaningless number?
The current plan is irrational and will harm teachers and, ultimately, their students. Let’s show that we are better than that in Florida.
Marianne Barnes, Jacksonville Beach